


Dark Side of the Moon

by Eilinelithil



Series: Thoughts On A Happy Ending [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 05:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17912486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eilinelithil/pseuds/Eilinelithil
Summary: Belle reflects on everything – to whom the reflection is addressed remains unspoken. Focus is Season 2 Episode 7, but references events from the life of the series to date - this story is the fifth in what will probably be a long series.





	Dark Side of the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own them – if I did I’d treat them a whole hell of a lot better than ABC did.

Let me ask you a question. What is a monster to you?

I lived… _so_ many years – peaceful years, if not always without moments of unpleasantness – with someone that most in the realms is considered to be nothing _but_ a monster: Rumplestiltskin… the Dark One… Mr. Gold. I struggled, many times over to convince even _him_ that he was not a monster, with anyone else… it was a near impossibility.

There’s always been a lot of talk about ‘superpowers’ in Storybrooke. If Emma’s was to always know when someone was telling the truth, and David’s was to always be able to find the ones he loves, then mine… well mine doesn’t feel like a superpower at all, it’s simple the right thing to do – to always see the good in people, and that’s what I did with Rumple, right from the start. It isn’t always _safe_ , but that doesn’t make it wrong, or a weakness, which is the impression I get of the way that other people see it – especially the women in the Charming clan.

It was however how I found myself ending up chained up in the Library for hours on end.

I had trouble connecting with people – I wish I could say ‘back in the beginning’ or ‘when I first got out of the asylum,’ but the truth is that it was all the time.  People found it hard, I suppose, letting go of their prejudices against Rumple, and given my love for him… at best I think I was tolerated, humored. Sometimes it bothered me, mostly not, in the early days at least, but I did wish for not having to try so hard to make friends… have connections, and maybe that’s why I clung to what I had with Ruby.

Ruby was the first person to help me out after the fist time I had troubles with Rumple, not long after we found one another again, and I suppose that also had something to do with it.  When the curse was broken, and we were each of us reconnected with our Enchanted Forest identities, with who, and what we are, there was Ruby… Red Riding Hood… the ‘Big Bad Wolf’ of story, but… did that make her a monster?

As with Rumple, she seemed to think it did. I wouldn’t give up on her though, she was my friend, and when she became beset with fears of what she might do at the coming of the full moon that would likely bring her to change, what else could I do but support her?

There was some guy… Gus I think he said his name was in the Enchanted Forest, one of Cinderella’s mice. Here in Storybrooke his name was Billy, and he was pressing her for a date, was actually corny enough to tell her, “I already know Ruby, I want the chance to meet Red.”  Not that I really had any experience with dating or being picked up, but it sounded more than a little cheesy – no pun intended.

“Um… Tonight’s actually not great, because…”

I hurried over, meaning to rescue her, slipped my arm through hers, and finished her sentence for her.

“Uh, we, uh... we have, uh, plans,” I said, perhaps not the most convincing of interventions, but not the worst, and it seemed to work as Ruby continued my motif.

“That's right, um... It's girls' night. I'm bringing the cheese.” I cringed inwardly, as did Ruby outwardly as she stammered, “Which has nothing to do with you being a mouse. It has to do with the... wine.”

“Okay, um… maybe next time,” Billy said, and taking the hint, left.

“Thank you,” Ruby said.

“I can spot a girl in trouble,” I told her, “He… he seems really nice.”

“It’s… it’s complicated.”

Seeming troubled, Ruby walked off, and I'll admit to being quite perplexed myself. There were so many things I wanted to ask her, because I felt... I _knew_ somehow that there was more to it than just _complicated_ , but she left before I had a chance, heading for the back room, with Granny and David following close behind.

I might have gone to Rumple to ask my questions, and there were still many I have since my 'release' from the asylum, and coming back to him - realizing my love for him, but... as much as I still loved him, we had already had our difficulties, and I felt a bit... weird, I guess, running to him for answers. Besides that, as I later learned when David finally came by the library to unfasten the chains and let me out, Rumple was off helping Henry.

It seemed that Henry was suffering the after effects of having fallen under a sleeping curse and was having nightmares. I can appreciate how frightening that must have been for a boy of his age. Even for a grown woman like Aurora, or even more me - though since it was my choice, and did it to myself, I shouldn't really complain about any effects that _I_ have suffered - it can be terrifying, so to think that Henry was going through such a thing, it was easy to imagine that Rumple was willing to help the boy _without_ expecting any kind of a payment or deal. People probably didn't realize it then, but where children are concerned, there's never enough that he can do. I don't think he will ever find a way to absolve himself of the guilt of what he did that led to the loss of Baelfire, and besides, he isn't and never was the monster that everyone believed him to be.

But _monster_ seemed to be the word of the day that day, and it was often bandied about after David, Granny and Ruby arrived at the library, and Ruby found a set of chains that she tested in various places, pronouncing them sufficient to her needs - and of course we all assumed that she meant to chain herself, keep herself secure for the night. The Sherriff's station wasn't safe for her to stay there, not after Spencer turn up and started making threats; mob justice - the frightened townsfolk whipped into a frenzy of paranoia by his hatefulness, and as David thanked me for letting her hide in the library, I shook my head.

"Of course. It's, uh... it's not every day you find out your friend's--"

"A monster?" Ruby interjected.

"Hunted. I was going to say hunted," I corrected, and might have said more had Granny not surprised me by warning us all that the crowd was not so far away. Six blocks, she said, and in my surprise – and not at the crowd being so close – I asked, “You… you have wolf hearing too?”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” she answered, keeping the crossbow she held pointed downwards and regarding me over the top of her glasses, adding with irony, “Especially when you run a hotel.”

“The only way we’re going to get them all to stand down is if we prove Ruby had nothing to do with Billy’s death,” Charming interjected, leaning on the table, and I could see the doubt, the skepticism in Ruby’s eyes as she regarded him. It seemed to spur him to think of something. Straightening and moving away from the table, he pointed at Granny.

“I’m going to need your help,” he told her, and then with a touch to my shoulder instructed, “If the mob comes this way, call us.”

I nodded, but he was already leading Granny out of the library leaving Ruby looking after the two of them with an expression of extreme worry on her face.  What do you say to a friend who has such worries and fears that they believe all they can do, all they _will_ do is hurt the people around them. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard such a thing, and it certainly _wouldn’t_ be last. As our time progressed together in Storybrooke it was the biggest of Rumple’s fears. I found then, and as I learned with greater expertise through my life with Rumple, that the best thing to do was to listen, and not just simply contradict.

Imagine your biggest fear, and sharing that fear with someone, only to have them tell you, “Oh no, that’s not real or true…”  Imagine how you would feel.  So I listened, and Ruby unfolded a tale of how she had found her people, her real mother, whom she had been told was dead, only to be the instrument in bringing about that truth, and the death of so many of her people, as one unwitting step led to another, and the Queen’s Guard followed Snow White into the wolves’ layer, and Snow had  only followed her to see that _she_ was safe. I could see her pain, _feel_ her pain, but… I guess perhaps I wasn’t as close to her as I’d thought because, she would let me in, taking a moment after telling her tale to ‘freshen up,’ while I tried to focus on the best means of comfort for when she would return.

Ruby moved back into the library, and without any chance for me to say a word of what was running through my head, she said, “You need to leave.  The moon’s gonna be up soon.”

“Will the chains hold?” I followed along beside her, step for step, toward where the end of the chains was fastened to a steel support.

“Hopefully,” she said, and I nodded.

“Then I’m staying.”

She turned to face me, doubt and disbelief all mingled in a single expression of fear upon her face.  I put my hands on her shoulders, smiling and giving her a little playful shake.

“Think of it as girl’s night.” She backed away, her expression hardening until my own sense of danger and worry made me ask, “What’s wrong?”

“I know David wants to believe the best,” she said, still backing away, and my heart twisted as I could _tell_ where she was going with what she was about to say even before she spoke the words, “But I’ve killed before, and I’ll do it again.” She picked up the chains, their rattle sounded especially harsh after her words. “Everyone in this town is right to be afraid of me.”

“Well, I’m not,” I argued, confident that even if she did turn, _was_ viscous… dangerous, I would still be able to calm her – get through to her.  I reached Rumple during some of his deepest, darkest moments, didn’t I?

“Well, you _should_ be.” She would not hear me.

“No matter what you might have done in your past,” I still tried to reason with her, “David sees the good in you, and that tells me one thing.”

“What?”

I breathed out a light, soft, companionable chuckle as I said, “That it’s in there,” moving closer to her again. “So, if we can all see it, why can’t you?”

“You really think so,” she asked, and her voice was softer than before, had lost the harsh desperation of fear.

Perhaps I should have realized _then_ that her belief, her softening toward what I was saying, was not as it seemed, but… I chose, as always, to believe the best as I always did, and especially with Rumple, and thinking of him I told her, “Trust me. I’m… sort of an expert when it comes to rehabilitation.”

“Maybe.” Her expression was haunted, full of pain. “Maybe you’re right.” She moved closer as though she was going to hug me in acceptance.  Instead I felt the cold, hard steel close around my wrist, in much the same way as Ruby’s action showed me she was closing the door on any kind of acceptance that was, ironically, already hers.  I sighed, my sigh becoming lost in her harsh words, “But the town’s right too. I _am_ a monster, and that’s why I need to make sure I don’t _ever_ hurt _anyone_ again.”

“No… no. What are you doing?” I asked, turning to keep her in sight as she headed for the door.

“I can’t let you stop me,” she said. “The mob wants a wolf. I’m going to give them one. I need to pay for all I’ve done.”

“They’ll _kill_ you,” I implored.

“Isn’t that what I deserve?”

She left even as I was trying to formulate an answer, to make her see that no matter _what_ a person had done in the past, who they are now, and how they behave, how they _help_ others, as Ruby did, was how they should be judged.

We are, all of us, too quick to judge.

Never anywhere clearer have I seen that than in the way Rumple was treated through most of his life, even when – finally – the truth was revealed, that his own, personal curse began many long years before he ever became the Dark One.

Whether you believe willingly, or that he was tricked, of that circumstances forced his hand, how different would his life have been if he had lived it as it was meant to be.  How different would Ruby’s life have been?

No one deserves death for that which can be atoned, especially not if they were already grieving for it in their hearts… and the howl I heard, carried back into the library on the night’s wind, voiced that guilt and grief.

Locked up in the library I had plenty of time to think; to realize that just as I _refused_ to judge Ruby, even _I_ had been too quick to judge Rumple. When I had seen him in the basement, using magic – and knowing what I now know, only to find his beloved son; realized that in most things that he did – when you looked past the apparent self-centered edge of things he’d done, many of his actions sought to help, to heal, to benefit others.

Isn’t _that_ the essence of a savior?


End file.
